Nutrition for runners doesn't need to be complicated. But it does need to be deliberate. A well-structured eating plan built around your training week, rather than around a generic daily calorie target, is one of the highest-return changes most recreational runners can make. Not for weight loss. For performance, recovery, and showing up to hard sessions with something left in the tank.
Here is how to eat across a training week, and how the Daily Shot fits into the cellular layer beneath that plan.
Why generic meal plans fail runners
Most nutrition advice is built on static daily calorie targets. You need 2,200 calories per day, split roughly 50/30/20 across carbohydrate, protein, and fat. For an office worker who walks 3,000 steps, that advice is broadly fine. For a runner doing 80km a week, with hard interval sessions on Tuesday and Thursday and a long run on Sunday, it's almost useless.
Your energy needs as a runner vary enormously across the training week. A rest day requires less than half the calorie intake of a hard session day. Your carbohydrate needs on a long-run day are two to three times higher than on a rest day. Your protein needs are highest in the 48 hours following your most demanding sessions, not distributed evenly across the week.
Periodised nutrition, eating to match the training demand of each day, is how elite endurance athletes fuel. It doesn't require a sports dietitian or a food scale on every meal. It requires understanding the general principle and building simple habits around it.
Training-day nutrition: hard sessions
Hard training days include interval sessions, tempo runs, marathon-pace efforts, and long runs above 90 minutes. These sessions are primarily fuelled by glycogen, and your carbohydrate intake on these days should be highest.
Target 6 to 8g of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight on hard training days. For a 70kg runner, that is 420 to 560g of carbohydrate across the day, or roughly twice what you'd eat on a rest day. Distribute this across pre-training, during training (for efforts above 75 minutes), and recovery.
Pre-training meal: 1 to 2g of carbohydrate per kilogram, eaten 90 to 120 minutes before the session. Two slices of white toast with honey and a banana covers approximately 80g. Post-session: the first 30 to 60 minutes after a hard effort is the fastest window for glycogen replenishment. Aim for 1g of carbohydrate per kilogram within this window, alongside 20 to 25g of protein to support muscle repair. Chocolate milk is a surprisingly well-researched recovery drink. So is a smoothie with fruit, oats, and Greek yoghurt.
Protein target on hard training days: 1.6 to 2.0g per kilogram of body weight. A 70kg runner needs 112 to 140g of protein on these days. Spread this across four to five eating occasions rather than concentrated at dinner: research shows muscle protein synthesis is maximised when protein is distributed throughout the day, not consumed in one large bolus.
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Easy training-day nutrition: recovery runs
Easy runs (Z1 to Z2 effort, conversational pace, 30 to 60 minutes) have a modest calorie demand. The mistake most runners make on these days is eating as much as they do on hard days, or conversely, under-eating because the session felt easy and they're trying to maintain a certain bodyweight.
On easy days, reduce carbohydrate intake to 4 to 5g per kilogram, keep protein at 1.6g per kilogram or above, and eat enough total calories to support recovery and adaptation from the previous hard session. A useful mental model: easy days are recovery days. Your muscles are rebuilding from Tuesday's intervals. The food you eat on Wednesday is partly for Wednesday's run and mostly for Tuesday's damage.
Rest-day nutrition
Rest days are not cheat days, but they also aren't high-carbohydrate training days. On rest days, reduce carbohydrate intake to 3 to 4g per kilogram, maintain protein at 1.4 to 1.6g per kilogram, and don't dramatically reduce total calories if you're in a heavy training block. Aggressive calorie restriction on rest days impairs recovery, disrupts sleep, and sets you up for a compromised performance on the next hard session day.
Prioritise micronutrients on rest days: iron-rich foods (red meat, legumes, leafy greens), magnesium-rich foods (nuts, seeds, dark chocolate, leafy greens), and B vitamins (whole grains, eggs, dairy). These are the nutrients most endurance runners run chronically low on, and they matter for mitochondrial function and energy metabolism in ways that carbohydrate and protein intake doesn't address. For a detailed look at the specific micronutrient deficiencies most common in endurance athletes, see the OLEUS micronutrients guide.
The cellular layer: what a meal plan can't fully address
Food provides macronutrients (the substrate) and micronutrients (the cofactors). But your mitochondria also require consistent support at the cellular level to maintain the structural integrity that allows them to function efficiently day after day through a demanding training block.
This is where dietary patterns alone show their limits. Magnesium, B vitamins, and antioxidants from food sources support mitochondrial function; the evidence for this is well-established. But the volume and bioavailability of these compounds in typical diet patterns is often insufficient to fully cover the demands of sustained endurance training, particularly at higher weekly loads.
Research by Nielsen and Lukaski (2006) showed that magnesium is required for every step of ATP synthesis, and that exercise increases magnesium requirements significantly above resting levels. Most endurance athletes run low on magnesium even when eating a varied diet. This has downstream effects on energy production, sleep quality, and HRV, none of which are solved by adding more pasta.
The Daily Shot is built to address this cellular layer. Two shots per day, every day, provide the consistent cellular support that food alone rarely covers at the level a high-training-load runner actually needs. It is not a meal replacement. It is the cellular foundation that runs beneath the meal plan.
A practical week of runner nutrition
Monday (rest): Moderate carbohydrate (3 to 4g/kg), high protein, micronutrient-rich foods (leafy greens, nuts, fish). Daily Shot with breakfast and dinner.
Tuesday (intervals): High carbohydrate (7 to 8g/kg), pre-session carbohydrate meal, post-session recovery nutrition within 30 minutes. Daily Shot with breakfast.
Wednesday (easy run): Moderate-high carbohydrate (4 to 5g/kg), focus on protein distribution across meals. Daily Shot with breakfast.
Thursday (tempo): High carbohydrate, same as Tuesday structure. Pre-session meal 90 minutes before. Daily Shot with breakfast.
Friday (rest or easy): Moderate carbohydrate, recovery focus, micronutrient-dense foods. Daily Shot with breakfast and dinner.
Saturday (preparation for long run): Increase carbohydrate to 6 to 7g/kg. Light, familiar pre-run breakfast laid out the night before.
Sunday (long run): High carbohydrate pre-run, fuel during run above 75 minutes (60g carbohydrate per hour), immediate post-run recovery nutrition. Daily Shot with breakfast.
The cellular foundation your training week runs on
The Daily Shot is taken once a day, every day, to support mitochondrial function and cellular energy production across your training block. The foundation the meal plan sits on.
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Sources
Nielsen, F.H., Lukaski, H.C. (2006). Update on the relationship between magnesium and exercise. Magnesium Research, 19(3), 180-189. PubMed: 17172008
Lanfranchi, C., et al. (2026). Oleuropein-based olive leaf extract enhances muscle mitochondrial bioenergetics response to moderate but not maximal intensity exercise in humans. Journal of Physiology. DOI: 10.1113/JP290316
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